A Way Home?
by AppleLass
Summary: They've found a way home, and now the only thing keeping them here is...


Disclaimer: I don't own Eureka or any of the characters.

A/N: I wrote this in response to a comment to that Allison wasn't fighting hard enough to stay in the new timeline. I decided to write this to make it up to Allison.

XXXXX

The five cohorts, Jack, Allison, Fargo, Henry and Jo, sat around a small circular table at Cafe Diem off in a corner. Jo sat against the wall, facing the room. Her eyes were open and observant, her old military habits kicking in. Henry had been rattling off some scientific babble for nearly five minutes before Jack cut into the announcement. "So what you're saying is, Henry, that you've found a way to get us back to the old timeline?"

Henry nodded, slowly. "Like I said, it was by accident. One of the scientists at GD discovered a way to map time, and by accident he found little particles connecting all of us together... and going back to a different timeline, like footprints. He posited a way that we could follow our own tracks back in time to reverse what we had done."

"You mean like when it snows. I make a path with my feet to the mailbox, and I can step in those footprints again to get back inside without making a new path."

Jo marveled at Jack Carter's ability to hear scientific explanations and make random analogies from them. "This is perfect! Will it take us right back to our old timeline when we left it?" Jo leaned forward excitedly. She did not notice that she was the only one who seemed excited by the news.

"Theoretically, yes," Henry said hesitantly, but his gaze was on Allison.

"I'm not going," the doctor said quietly.

Jo looked at the other woman in surprise. "But this is what we have been hoping for, right? A way to go back? To put things the way they belong?"

"They belong this way now, Jo. Can't you see? Almost everything is better here. I have Kevin, Henry has Grace, Fargo has GD. Even you have a new job."

"You had Kevin back in the old timeline, too," Jo whispered, afraid her voice was going to get to loud and attract more notice. Why couldn't they see that she had nothing here? Nothing here that mattered. "And I had..."

Allison leaned forward, compassion in her eyes. "I know it's hard, Jo, but Zane is here, too."

"Not in the same way. And not my Zane."

"Just as it wouldn't be the same Kevin. And Henry would lose Grace and Fargo his job... Jo, as much as maybe we shouldn't be, most of us are happy here. And we're not leaving."

"This is ridiculous. When we first arrived we tried so hard to go back. Now you've all become complacent." Jo crossed her arms in disgust. Had they really found a way back? A way for her to be with her Zane again, to let him know that yes, she loved him and would marry him? A way they were now just throwing away?

"We've adjusted, Jo. We've made the best of things. Why can't you?" Allison shook her head in sadness and determination.

Jo wanted to lash out, but instead she sat in her chair, knuckles white as she gripped the arm rests. "It's not that easy. We can't even tell Zane..."

Henry was about to open his mouth when that very person walked into Cafe Diem. His eyes went directly to Jo's, and he started sauntering in their direction. He had a smug look on his face and a T-shirt that was far too small for Jo's comfort. Not for her liking... her comfort. She made a small wave at Henry not to continue talking, followed by a pointed look in Zane's direction.

"That's actually something I wanted to talk about," Henry started. He looked over at Jo nervously. "He's actually the one who figured it out."

Jo's mouth hung open as Zane finally reached the table. "Hey kids. Anybody want to see my DeLorean?"

XXXXX

Zane watched Jo's face register shock, and then took in the silence of the rest of the table. It was Fargo who spoke first. "It's a 'Back to the Future' reference? DeLorean's the car-"

Allison held up her hand in Fargo's face, something Zane had rarely seen anyone do to the director of GD. Well, prior to this "new" version. "The problem is, Zane, that we're not sure we're going to use it. For all we know it's highly dangerous and the results could be unpredictable and-"

Carter took Allison's hand that was beginning to wave agitatedly as she spoke. Zane pulled out his data pad and tapped it against the open palm of his hand. "That's sort of what I kind of wanted to bring to your attention. One of the ways I was able to track specifically where the Donovan particles led back to was because of their half-life."

"Half-life?" Carter asked.

"Donovan particles?" Fargo chimed in, irritated.

"I did discover them," Zane grinned.

"What Zane means by half-life," Henry cut in, "is that they are degrading. Little by little they are disappearing."

"I was able to pinpoint the place in time they come from using this. Like a fourth geographic coordinate. But because it's degrading, you won't have that much time before the particles are gone completely."

"And with them our only hopes of getting back home," Jo frowned. "How much longer do we have?"

Zane rechecked his pad, but the numbers were the same as when he left his office that afternoon. "I'd say you have 24 hours to make a successful trip. After that I can't guarantee accuracy. After 48 hours, they will be gone completely."

Zane watched the faces of the five travelers carefully. Allison seemed determined and looked a little flush. Carter was worried and confused, as usual. Henry and Fargo were thoughtful and Jo... He let his gaze rest on Jo longer than the others. She looked hopeful and sad and upset. In fact he had never seen the Head of GD Security look so uncomposed in her life.

"We should talk about this-" Jo started, but Allison cut her off, rising.

"I'm done talking, Jo. I'm not going back. No one is." Jack hurried after her after throwing Jo a sympathetic look, but it was obvious which side he was going to have to take.

Fargo asked to see Zane's notes, and he sent them over to both Fargo and Henry from his data pad. "I'm not sure I'm letting you name them," Fargo muttered as his phone pinged. "Fargo," he answered, getting up from the table and walking outside.

Henry looked back and forth between Jo and Zane and offered a small smile. "I should better go and tell Grace."

Only when the rest had left did Zane allow himself to sit next to Jo. Jo had seemed to withdraw into herself, and she slumped back into her chair as if defeated.

"You must have some life to get back to there, huh?" Zane had meant it as a joke, but it fell flat in the air between them. This was not right; Jo Lupo was supposed to be the strong one, the one with indomitable spirit. "Come on, Jo. It can't be all bad here, right? What was so special about the other timeline, anyway?" He ducked his head a little, trying to get her to look at his charming smile.

Jo looked at him sadly, the fight gone out of her. "What has Henry told you?"

Zane shrugged. "Enough." Enough about why Jo would be the only one who would want to go back. "Enough to wonder why you haven't been trying as hard to make a life here. Was being with me really something you regret that much?"

Jo looked up, surprised. "No! Of course not, it's just..."

"Just what, Jo? Don't tell me you were scared?"

She rolled her eyes at him, but took the bait. "No... but you hated me. Understandable, from the way I supposedly treated you. And once you didn't, you were seeing Zoe."

"Hey - that was very casual and very short." He frowned, concerned that his summer fling with Carter's daughter had been a wedge that had kept her from... from what? What had he wished she had done? "Anyway, you could have just said you liked me." He tried smiling again.

"And have you make fun of me? Spread it around GD? Once I had gotten into the enforcer role that you and everyone else saw me as, it was too hard to try to leave that. I focused on the idea that getting back was the only way I could have what I had before."

Zane let the silence sit between them for a moment before asking the question that had bothered him for a few months now. "When you said that we didn't fit... what do you mean?"

"I was hallucinating, Zane."

"True, but you had obviously been thinking about something. Why did you say it?"

Jo sighed, not meeting his eyes. That was fine, as long as she talked to him. "You're smart, Zane. Not just smart. A genius. I can't compare to that. When we first started dating... before... it was a problem. I always felt dumb around you. When I got here I started to feel that way, all over again. Things were never perfect between us, no matter how much I tried to remember it that way."

"Seemed like they were good enough if you had wanted to settle down," he said softly pulling out from his pocket the ring she had thrown at him. His grandmother's ring. Well, a version of it. "This was how I discovered the Donovan particles, you know. I called my grandmother. It disappeared the same day you and Henry and the others arrived from your timeline, just like your other versions disappeared. I spent a while trying to figure out how it was possible, and then I found the particles."

Jo laughed once, humorlessly. "The ring. So the ring was the key all along. Not that it does me any good now." Zane noticed that she would not even look at the ring.

"Listen, Jo. I know the past two and a half years are different from what you knew or from what you had hoped. You're different, and I'm certainly different. And I'm not promising that we'll end up as well as we once did..." He spent a brief moment glancing down at the ring before wrapping his fist around it. "But why not? You're still the only woman I'd consider introducing to my mother, and we're not even dating yet."

Jo cracked at smile at that, and Zane pounced. "What, you've already met her? I bet she made you her famous blueberry pie."

Jo wrinkled up her nose. "I have never had a berry pie with so much sugar in it before."

"I know, I love it."

Jo sighed, the smile drifting off her face. "It's hard, Zane. In what, 48 hours? He will be completely gone. Everything that once was will be untraceable and lost forever. It's hard to let go of him."

"From what I see, I'm still sitting right here, JoJo."

XXXXX

Was he really saying what she thought he was saying? Hope at Henry's initial announcement had leeched out of her during her argument with Allison, leaving her cold, shivery and defeated. Allison had seemed to think that Jo could have again what she originally had with Zane. Maybe not the same relationship, but at least happiness. Was Allison right?

"We were never perfect," she whispered, not daring to look up at his expression. There were only so many times her heart could break and she would hate if it happened a second time today.

Only when Zane took her hand did she look up into his tentative smile. "Does this mean you're you asking me out, Jo Lupo?"

Jo rolled her eyes. "This means I'll let you ask me to brunch without tasering you for it."

"Brunch, huh? I've never had a brunch date before. It sounds perfect."


End file.
